Friday, October 28, 2011

Answer Buzzers- Giveaway!!!!

Hi friends! A fabulous educational company, Learning Resources blessed my classroom with the the cutest answer buzzers you will ever see, and this week my kiddos went absolutely BANANAS over them! The buzzers are cute, colorful, and fun to use! They don't sound like your regular run-of-the-mill buzzers, and I LOVE that they each make a distinct kid-friendly sound. My personal favorite is the doorbell. :)

If you have been following my blog for any amount of time, you've probably picked up on my compulsion for filling my classroom with brightly colored goodies. I love how bright and cheery these little beauties are! Let's just say... I'm smitten. :) After our little review session this week, my thirdsters are smitten too.

Since we just wrapped up our Unit 1 Benchmark Test and were wrapping up the 1st 9-weeks, I thought it was only appropriate to do a little review of the concepts we have studies thus far. So, we pulled up a little Powerpoint presentation, and played a round of "Are You Smarter Than a Third Grader?" I may have belted out a little ditty or two to amp up the excitement level, but I'm not ashamed! Hahaha! Essentially, the game looked a little like this:

The kiddos took turns answering questions and hitting the appropriate buzzer. I labeled each buzzer with a Post-It to designate each buzzer as an answer choice, and everything went off without a hitch. Since we haven't memorized the sounds that each buzzer makes yet, the kiddos simply said the letter they chose as they hit the buzzer. They ate it up with a spoon!!!! Of course, I LOVE finding ways to make review sessions and test prep more engaging and tantalizing, and I am totally excited! The buzzers will be making LOTS of appearances, and I am certain that they will help increase attentiveness... and ultimately grades. :)
Do you want to know the best part?! They are only $19.99 HERE!!! A TOTAL STEAL!

Of course, I am a big proponent of putting kids in the proverbial driver's seat, so I conducted a little poll afterwards to see what they thought about our fabulous new learning tool. This is what they thought:

Here's what you need to do to win a set of answer buzzers for your classroom...

Leave a comment telling me how you would use the answer buzzers! :) I'd love to hear!
"Like" Learning Resources on Facebook and tell them that One Extra Degree sent you!
Follow their blog, and tell them I sent you!
Follow Learning Resources on Twitter.

(The winner will be randomly drawn next Friday, November 4th at 10 P.M. EST}

65 comments:

So neat. I can think of so many ways to use these.1. Attention getters2. Use with task cards3. Use as markers in PE games/relays4. Use for patterning sounds. One student presses a series of buttons and another student repeats it.5. Motivation: Ex: Let a slow finisher press a button if they meet their goal of work completion.

I would use them to review or even introduce sight words, spelling words, and/or math facts. "Press the button by the word _____" or "... by the correctly spelled ______" or "by the equation that matches the word problem."There are just too many ways to use these!!

I LOVE these! I would use them as we review our quarterly Discovery Ed tests (basically practice tests for our big spring state assessment). They take almost an hour each to administer and even longer to review when the scores come back, so these buzzers would really pump our review sessions up!

I "liked" Learning Resources on Facebook and told them that One Extra Degree sent me!I followed their blog, and told them you sent me!I followed Learning Resources on Twitter.

I would use these for toileting goals with my special ed Kindergarten students who do not communicate verbally, so that they would have a highly motivating way of indicating when they have wet or soiled their diaper, or as they progress, to tell me that they have to go to the bathroom. That's my first thought!

This is a great way to mix up the regular test review. I play a lot a review games based upon gameshows like "Who Wants to be a Millionaire" and "Jeopardy." What has been missing from these review games? Buzzers or course!

So many uses. I'd use it for Are you Smarter than a 5th grader and other smart board review games. I'd also use it to transition between activities, centers, etc. I could even give a sound to different small groups and call them to instruction that way!Kathleen @ GraceFallsLikeRain at gmail dot com

Hmmm ... I am thinking that these would be great for different procedures. The doorbell means come to the carpet. The buzzer means line up at the door. The phone sound means rotate to the next station. (I don't know that the sounds really are - I am just making these up!)CamilleAn Open Door

I follow your blog. I would use the buzzers to answer multiple choice questions on the SMARTBoard. I also like the idea of doing a noise patterning using the buzzers. I love how colorful they are. If I don't win them I may have to buy them.

These buzzers look like so much fun to use with my first graders! I would use them for (just to name a few things):math fact reviewwhen rhyming, vocab, spelling pattern words are found in sentencesto signal the class when it's time to turn page in readers

And last, how I would use them: Well, with this new portfolio thing I am planning on doing where reading partners focus on a skill together, I want them to be able to have some more fun components. I would use them when the kids came to my center for either reading (or math). Additionally, it would be exciting during the Inquiry time which will be coming to my room next month. I also do an "Which Explorer is This?" game this month in November (or whatever... there are many variations on the games I do. Another is "Which region of Florida is this?".)

It is awesome how you received these. I know they are pretty awesome. I've heard a lot about them. - Victoria

These buzzers look SWEET! I love anything that jazzes up my teaching. I can see my third graders doing anything for a chance to use these! I think I would use them for math. I would have four different students put their strategy for a word problem on the board and then label each with a buzzer. I would then let each student choose which strategy they found most useful by buzzing in. I can think of many more, but this is the first thing I would try.

* getting kids attention - I have 31 students * review games of our learning * using Lakeshore games such as Math Quiz Game Show. Kids could choose the correct buzzer for their choice. * guided reading groups

I would totally use these with my sixth graders for learning games! I've been looking for a way to have them compete with each other, but every thing I try turns out so messy. These - especially with their sounds!!!!!! - will make it so easy and they'll eat it up! :)